[funsec] Not so fast, broadband providers tell big users (fwd)

Tue Mar 13 18:01:56 UTC 2007

Roland Dobbins wrote:
> 
> 
> On Mar 13, 2007, at 10:10 AM, Daniel Senie wrote:
> 
>> As with the deployment of telephone service a century ago, the
>> ubiquitious availability of broadband service will require government
>> involvement in the form of fees on some and subsidies for others
>> (might be a good use for the funds Massachusetts is trying to extract
>> from Verizon for property tax on telephone poles, I suppose).
>> Otherwise, we'll see the broadband providers continue to cherry pick
>> the communities to service, and leave others in the digital dustbowl.
> 
> Various rural phone companies aside, the majority of this was
> accomplished in the U.S. via a regulated monopoly, and in many other
> countries via a government-owned regulated monopoly.  Do you believe
> that's necessary and/or desirable in order to make broadband
> ubiquitous?  How do longer-range wireless technologies like WiMAX
> potentially impact the equation?

The thing that I would observe is that on the way to deploying
ubiquitous phone services most emerging markets skipped the step where
they wire everything up because they simply couldn't afford it.
Competing cell carriers did a lot more to put communications services in
the hands of rural and urban africans than the monopoly ptt's ever did.

> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> Roland Dobbins <rdobbins at cisco.com> // 408.527.6376 voice
> 
>         Words that come from a machine have no soul.
> 
>                       -- Duong Van Ngo
> 